Submitted by “With a recent flurry of releases and announcements from yellowTAB, I decided that it was time to talk to Bernd Korz about where he hopes to take ZETA. He was kind enough to go through these plans at length with me, and at the same time gave valuable personal insights into the man behind the public face of yellowTAB.”
I can’t wait to get gcc 4 on Zeta! It’s a big improvement over 2.95, it’s faster at compiling and it produces better code.
Well, reading this article i think its clear that we can once and for all close the “do they have the source”-debate.
Yes they do.
gcc4 will break compatibility with old beos apps. Anyway as i heard they have broke smp compatibility already , i wonder what will happen to zeta in the future.
It seems that PalmOS, the current owners of BeOS, is winding down. It’s too bad they don’t release BeOS as OS since they have little financial incentive not to.
@mariux
No one except yT (Yellowtab) knows the real answer to this. It really doesn’t matter anyways, because they incorporate Haiku-OS & yT code into Zeta. So, it is starting to distinguish itself from BeOS 5.x
What people should focus on is the question of “how good is Zeta right now and how good will it be with the coming releases?”
Does having the original source code or not really matter (ie: if yT can improve on BeOS any way they can – isn’t that what really counts?).
All I care about is having an updated & better version of BeOS & Zeta is looking very promising.
@ Anonymous IP: 85.182.65.xxx
GCC4 will break compatibility with old BeOS apps, but most have source code available. A recompile of the sources should make the program work on a GCC4 Zeta version.
SMP wasn’t working with Zeta 1.0, but the 1.1 Update (free download) got it working again from what I’ve read.
GCC4 will improve speed & had to be done sooner or later. It is a good move to do it now, before Zeta gets too far along & then they decide to switch to gcc4.
Going to gcc4 will make certain that people won’t be able to use newer applications on old BeOS. Either you’ll require Zeta (or a gcc4 version of Haiku-OS).
General rule: Sooner is better than latter in most cases.
TS57
How exactly does gcc4 break compatibility? Is it in a sense that (shared) libs compiled with gcc4, like libbe.so etc. can’t be used with old apps? If so, wouldn’t it be possible, for older apps to get them working by including symlinks to older shared libs in their ‘lib’ subfolders? I did this trick with apps that require older versions of openGL and it worked. Or is something more..
The C++ ABI is completely different between 2.x and 3.x (let alone 4.x), so any C++ applications are totally broken. They can be made run with hacking, version numbered libs, etc – totally un-BeOS-way, mind (Be just broke binary compatibility a number of times, so we should be used to it by now…)
Also, try loading a GCC2 compiled plugin into a GCC3 compiled app – or vice versa. Mozilla and RealPlayer on Linux gives you this possibility. Not going to work.
omg i sharted in my pants again
Everything I read something on mr Kortz, I get more convinced he completely lacks charisma, yet he does know how to get Yellowtab on the right track.
I always laugh when he says ‘bullshit!’ during a demo.
I do wish his company would respond to repeated requests for a review copy of Zeta. I guess I’ll have to buy it to review it. In that case, I will be grading on a steep curve.
At least he responds to interviews, unlike some ELQ’s around here.
New BeDoper Year-End Issue
http://www.bedoper.com/bedoper/2005/37.htm
Oh, yes. http://www.BeOSnews.com is a new BeOs news site. It somehow didn’t get a mention here.
mariux said:
“Well, reading this article i think its clear that we can once and for all close the “do they have the source”-debate.
Yes they do.”
I don’t believe they do, they (most likely) payed for some of the Dan0 IP from (what was)Palm source to fix the Kernel and other bits and pieces, if they did have the whole source code of Dan0 (unlikey) they would not have needed Haiku.
But I believe the Zeta rewrite in gcc 4 will have The Dan0 code they payed for, their own code and a large if all of the (MIT/BSD)Haiku code.
All in all then they will have the complete code for the Zeta OS in total they need, and no more lying from Yellowtabs at last about the damn code.
Remember the desenters only want to keep Yellowtab honest, not sink them, call it constructive criticism.
Yellowtab are going in the right direction.
The Video editing suit is their ‘Killer App’ that will sell this OS.
“There is another big change that we haven’t been talking publicly about earlier. It can be said to be of the more political kind. We have decided to move away from the use of GNU General Public License (GPL) as much as possible. We are taking an active stand against it, as we see that it has never had any real use and place on the BeOS platform.”
Never had any real use and place? How about the GPL licensed GNU Compiler Collection you were just talking about?
I see… I know any 2.x compiled libs and addons can’t be used with any 3.x > compiled stuff, such is life
I was more interested in a possibility of running a limited set of 2.x compiled apps (the ones that only need some basic libs) in, let’s say, future Haiku. You know, some sort of a legacy environment for apps like BeIDE. Other than that I totally agree clean design and features should not be compromised for sake of backward binary compatibility only. I do think a limited legacy environment (involving 2.x compiled libs hack) could be achieved without interfering with newer designs…
Don’t worry about BeIDE: there will be a more powerful and modern replacement for it before yT has made their transition to gcc 4.x, and I’m not referring to what yT is working on, either. Furthermore, it won’t be limited to only working on Zeta.
I’d like more info on this more powerful and modern replacement, please. ; )
[email protected]
For BeOSNews.com
funny how this always come up during any ZETA article, but..
@mariux
EVERYONE has the code. it’s not a matter of whether they have it or not. It’s a question of legality. Please get it right. 🙂
Are yes! Thats right, the infamous source code leak.
Yellowtab Glassed